


a little bit of foolishness and a lot of curiosity

by thesecretdetectivecollection



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Mutual Masturbation, i'm sorry but they are teenagers all they do is wank and think about wanking okay, okay with that said... also, young soft boys falling in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 17:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18833539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretdetectivecollection/pseuds/thesecretdetectivecollection
Summary: Stevie hears Jamie touching himself one night and finds himself... fascinated.Jamie returns the fascination, fortunately."This isn't going to affect us out there, is it?" Jamie asks him one night.Stevie shakes his head.Of course, falling in love doesn't help with the compartmentalizing.





	a little bit of foolishness and a lot of curiosity

The first time, they’re in a hotel room the night before a match. Jamie’s a confident twenty-year-old, body just in the process of escaping its soft, skinny youth. Stevie’s eighteen, just barely, and he’s painfully shy. He doesn’t speak to anyone on the team until they speak to him first, and mostly, he sticks to Jamie, Redders, and Michael Owen.  
  
He knows Jamie gets insomnia sometimes, so he wouldn’t be shocked if his roommate was awake.  
  
At first, he almost thinks he’s imagining it. But then it happens again.  
  
The nearly silent sound of skin on skin, in a rhythm every teenage boy knows intimately. There’s a quiet click of a lid and a moment later, the unmistakable sound of lube easing the slide of palm against cock.  
  
Stevie lays completely still, not even daring to breathe. Jamie’s doing admirably, repressing his reaction, but he can’t stop his body from feeling what it feels, either. His breaths come quicker and quicker, growing just slightly harsher and louder, now that Stevie’s laser-focused on them.  
  
To his surprise, his own body starts to react, a tentative stirring in his shorts. He considers slipping his hand in and jerking off, but it feels like a line too far to cross, jacking off to his teammate jacking off.  
  
Jamie lets out a soft gasp, and the sharp inhale and slow, relaxed exhale tells Stevie he’s just come.  
  
His breath evens out after that, and in a few short minutes, he’s sleeping. Or at least Stevie’s pretty sure he’s sleeping. Jamie doesn’t snore, is the thing, so there’s no easy way to tell.  
  
_I never thought I’d **want** my roommate to snore_, he thinks sardonically to himself.  
  
He waits a few minutes longer, half-expecting a loud peal of laughter, Jamie wearing his wide, contagious grin, the one that deepened the dimples in his cheeks and made his eyes light up. He waits for the inevitable “got you, Stevie! You can’t honestly think I was wanking while you were in the room, mate!”  
  
None of that happens, though, and slowly, carefully, silently, his fingers pass under his waistband and curl around himself, grasping just tight enough, and he starts stroking.  
  
As soon as he starts, he mentally has to give Jamie credit—it’s shockingly hard to jerk off quietly, when his hips want to buck into the right grip of his fist, when he wants to let himself breathe and gasp and whimper like he usually does when he does this.  
  
He comes in what feels like no more than two minutes, and at some point, he might reflect on what exactly about his teammate masturbating had made him so terribly horny that barely a touch made him go off like a rocket.  
  
But right this second, he’s caught up in a haze of post-orgasmic bliss and he doesn’t want to think about a damn thing.  
  
He’s asleep seconds after he wipes his hand off on a tissue and rolls over, facing away from Jamie.

 

He wakes in the morning and it’s bizarre, how normal Jamie is. It makes Stevie feel a little crazy. More to the point, it makes him wonder if that was the first time he’d wanked with Stevie in the next bed over, or if he always did it. Stevie trues to make himself act normal, but every time Jamie stretches out with a little groan, or whines, or rubs his eyes letting loose soft, pornographic gasps of pleasure—well, it’s hard to act normal under those circumstances, knowing what he knows.  
  
He keeps imagining that gasp as Jamie had come. It’s such an intimate thing to know about someone, the sound they release when they’re climaxing. It’s not the sort of thing friends know about each other, no matter how close—and Stevie considers himself and Jamie to be pretty damn close.

 

He thinks about it all the time. After they get home, he says goodbye to Jamie and drives back to his house with his family and lays in bed in the same bedroom he’d had when he first signed for Liverpool at the age of nine. He’s outgrown the space in a lot of ways, and it’s never more obvious than when he’s thinking about his teammate having a wank and slowly jerking himself off, reliving every sound. He has to keep his eyes closed, or else he feels John Barnes’ eyes watching him from the poster on the wall, and he feels like a pervert and a disappointment.

 

Two days later, he takes down the posters in his room and buys cheap art prints instead to cover the bare white spaces left behind. When his mother asks, he says it feels odd, knowing Barnesy in the dressing room and having him up on his wall at home. He neglects to mention that Barnesy’s a boner-killer, and he really interferes with Stevie’s nightly ritual of rubbing one out to the thought of his teammate.

 

It’s a bit of an identity crisis, to suddenly be wanking off to a guy when he’s only ever been turned on by women (or girls, if he counted the maddening crushes he’d had on his classmates in school). But he’s eighteen years old, he reminds himself. Pretty much anything can get him hard, or so he tells himself. Eighteen year old boys’ bodies are flooded with hormones and they wank a thousand times a day, and hell, who cares if it’s a man or a woman in his head as long as he gets to feel the immense pleasure of release, eyes rolling in the back of his head for a moment as his breathing slows down. At home, he doesn’t have to be as quiet, either. He can’t be loud, certainly, not with his brother and parents in the same house as him, but there’s nobody in the room, so a gasp or muttered obscenity now and then doesn’t bother anyone.

 

At first, it’s not the thought of him. That seems to cross some sort of line in Stevie’s head. At first, it’s just arousal—he’s eighteen years old and pretty much everything to do with sex turns him on, and this is strange and exciting, and why on earth wouldn’t this turn him on too? But he isn’t attracted to men, really, or at least he hasn’t been until now. It’s just a sex thing. It’s just his dick likes hearing Jamie’s dick get off. Or something. It isn’t a gay thing.

 

At first.

 

After some time, it does cross that line, and instead of just thinking about the act, the darkness and the sounds that could be coming from anybody, Stevie starts thinking of Jamie. Not just the voice at night that gasps as he comes, but his teammate, who’s funny and kind and always spares time for young fans and ruffles Stevie’s hair in passing. The sounds become superimposed with the image of Jamie’s face, his body. Stevie’s seen every inch of it, but he wonders what his dick looks like when it’s hard. It’s irritating, that after having every other blank filled, after knowing what he sounds like when he laughs and when he yells and when he comes, after knowing that he has a scar behind his right knee and one on his left ring finger, after knowing how his pale flesh turns a rosy red when someone snaps a towel against his bare ass and knowing how his eyes shine when he’s talking about football—after all of that, he doesn’t know what his dick looks like when it’s hard.

 

It’s a little irritating, and perhaps the worst part is that Stevie has no idea why he cares so much, only that he does.

 

He can’t wait for the next away game. He’s already planning on sleeping a lot in the coach, just so he can make sure he stays awake and doesn’t miss it. He hopes for a hotel with a light outside their window, maybe from the adjacent building, just enough to see the outline of Jamie’s cock through the blanket. He considers whether Jamie will be under the blanket at all, or whether he’ll be on top, whether he’ll get to see even more than a shadowy outline.

 

It happens again the next time they share a room. The stupid thing is that that only happens three or four times a month, whenever they’re at an away game. Stevie’ll die before he admits it, but honestly, hearing Jamie jerk off at night is one of the main reasons he even wants to win the fucking Champions League. Sure, the trophy would be nice, but the memories of Jamie’s breath hitching as he comes are mind-blowing.

 

Jamie‘s kind of handsome, now that Stevie’s taking the time to actually look at him. Girls seem to notice him, too, and he’s good about handling it—flirtatious but never too much. He smiles at them with those dimples of his and they laugh at his jokes and blush when his eyes openly roam up and down their bodies.  
  
He never brings anyone back to their room, though. Maybe it’s just a prematch thing, Stevie thinks to himself, trying to stay focused and not getting distracted by women. But the conventional wisdom had it that players were best if they hadn’t come before a match, if they had that passion in them, breaking free a different way.  
  
He keeps wanking at night, so that throws the conventional wisdom out the window. It’s Stevie’s favorite part of the week, those few minutes on the one or two nights a week they share a room, when he hears Jamie’s breathing quicken, the tiny gasp as he comes. Then it all slows, and eventually Jamie falls asleep and Stevie, with his heart in his mouth, slips a hand into his boxers to follow his lead.  
  
One night, they’re in Newcastle, the lights off and Jamie jerking off like he always does. Stevie’s listening, as he always does, and this time there’s a word.  
  
The first syllable is too quiet to hear, maybe Jamie’d only mouthed it, but the second is clear. “Ee.”  
  
That night, after Jamie’s fast asleep and Stevie’s finished up with the business of fucking his own fist, he wonders what the word was.  
  
_Baby_ , perhaps?  
  
Unless it’s a name. And if it is, then a man’s name or a woman’s?  
  
_Brittany?_  
Stacy?  
Stephanie?  
Jessie?  
Jesse? That one works for a man just as well, Stevie thinks to himself.

  
That leads him to thinking about men, and the first men he goes through are, of course, their teammates.

  
_Robbie?_ He’s cute, in his chubby-cheeked sort of way, with his mischievous eyes and the way he smirks when he’s up to something.

  
_Mickey?_ Jamie had known him longest, ever since Lilleshall, and they’re good friends—best friends, he would’ve said at one point, but Stevie suspects another person occupies that spot now.

  
_Jamie?_ Jamie goes by Carra for the most part, among the team. And Jamie Redknapp is pretty in a way that few people are, in the sort of way that earns him a few thousand extra quid every year doing scantily-clad photo shoots, sometimes with scantily-clad women alongside him.  


Then again, maybe it’s _Sami_. That would make sense—he’s Jamie’s center-back partner and he looks up to him. Stevie doesn’t think blondes are Jamie’s type, but he can’t _dis_ prove it, and maybe the hero worship makes him sexier in Jamie’s eyes.  
  
He’s drifting off to the hazy warmth of post-orgasmic sleep when his control slips and he allows himself to think what he hasn’t allowed himself to think this whole time.  
  
_Stevie_ fits the pattern.

  
Could refer to Macca, he refutes weakly, knowing full well that Macca goes mostly by Steve if not by his surname.  
  
He’s thinking about it as his thoughts blur into dreams—Jamie’s voice as he says his name with a breathy arousal, perched on top of him, bare skin touching bare skin from their lips to their ankles and everywhere in between.

\---

 

One night, they arrive at the hotel early, and the team splits up into its usual factions—the internationals get tired of speaking English all day, and they prefer to hang out in small groups, speaking their native tongues or taking siestas. The English boys are all together in Robbie and Macca’s room, sitting on the floor, just chit-chatting when Robbie gets up and crosses the room to the mini-bar.

 

“No drinking in front of the kids,” Redders says placidly, wearing the armband even when he’s not really wearing the armband.

 

“I would never!” Robbie responds in faux outrage, opening the fridge to show them all the contents—all water bottles.

 

“Yeah, only because you can’t, Rob,” Macca says, cackling.

 

Robbie shrugs in acknowledgement, a little smirk pulling at one side of his mouth.

 

He picks up a water bottle and sits back down on the floor, settling down next to Macca. “Let’s play spin the bottle, then.”

 

“Are you twelve?” Jamie teases.

 

“If I was twelve, you’d still be in your mum’s tummy, you.”

 

The banter goes on and on and when they spin the bottle, it lands on Stevie.

 

“Right lad, truth or dare?” Robbie asks.

 

“Truth.” Stevie’s got nothing to hide, after all. Besides, the thing with picking truth is that you could still lie. He’d never understand why everyone didn’t pick truth all the damn time.

 

“Who on the team would you most like to kiss?”

 

Stevie grins for a second. “Abby. The physio’s assistant. She’s really pretty.”

 

Robbie’s face falls, eyes narrowing. “I said on the team.”

 

“The medical staff are a very important part of the team, don’t you think?”

 

Jamie’s grinning from ear-to-ear. “Nicely done, Steve,” he praises, and Stevie grins back, reveling in the flush of warmth in his stomach.

 

They play awhile longer, and then the bottle lands right back on Stevie. “Truth,” he says again, not even waiting for the question to be asked.

 

“Right, who _in this room_ do you most want to kiss?”

 

The answer comes to his lips instantly, but he swallows it back down, carefully looking around the circle.

 

“I think Redders is probably prettiest,” he says thoughtfully, “but kissing the captain seems like a bad idea, and I think he’s a little too old for me.” He’s quiet for awhile longer.

 

“Well?”

 

“I’m thinking about whether I’m going to lie or not,” Stevie admits with a shrug, “I guess it’d be J.”

 

“Now was that a lie or not?”

 

“No. Though I might be lying about _that_ , you never know, do you?”

 

“Quit playing with him, Stevie, his poor brain can’t take it!” Jamie laughs and throws an arm around him.

 

The next time it lands on Stevie, he goes to pick truth.

 

“Nope, you’ve forfeited the right to truth,” Robbie announces, “by pretty much telling us you’d lie. For this turn, you have to do a dare.”

 

“Right, fine, but I’m not doing anything illegal, or… you know, messed up.”

 

“Kiss Jamie.”

 

Macca looks at Robbie and rolls his eyes. “On the mouth, Rob. You never learn—you’ve got to be specific.”

 

Stevie narrows his eyes. “Good catch,” he admits, “I was gonna kiss him on the cheek. Right, J, bring it in, it’ll be over before you know it.”

 

Jamie nods, and Stevie leans in to press his lips against Jamie’s. It’s short, or it’s meant to be, but then Jamie kisses him back, leans into it for a moment before they pull apart.

 

“Bit odd that you’re so eager to watch me and Stevie kissing, but there you go,” Jamie says airily, throwing his arm right back around Stevie as if everything hasn’t changed in a handful of seconds.

 

Stevie grins too, and if he maybe leans into the touch a little bit, he’s pretty sure nobody notices.

 

That night, after the game breaks up and they all have dinner and disperse to their separate rooms for the night, he and Jamie talk for awhile. They do that now and again, talk in the darkness after the lamp is out. It’s a special sort of conversation, with low voices in the dark.

 

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” Stevie says suddenly, breaking the quiet after the previous conversation had died down.

 

“Why are you sorry? Robbie dared you to.”

 

“I just—I don’t want things to be awkward.”

 

In the darkness, he can’t see what Jamie’s thinking, can’t see his face and how his eyes look, whether he’s pursing his lips or rolling his eyes or any of it. It’s disorienting, all of a sudden.

 

“Stevie, do you think things are going to be awkward?” Jamie asks, voice gentle.

 

“I don’t know. I hope not. I don’t think so, I just worry.”

 

“Things will only be awkward if we let them be, mate. You kissed me, I kissed you back, you’re still my best friend and my teammate and things are exactly the same as they were this morning, okay?”

 

“Okay.”

 

It’s not okay, though. Because things are not, in fact, the same as they had been that morning when Stevie had woken up and gone to the training ground and boarded the coach with the other boys. That Stevie, that one that had woken up in his twin bed, that one hadn’t known what it was like to kiss Jamie Carragher.

 

This Stevie, this one who’s going to sleep in a queen size bed in a hotel room with Jamie Carragher in the next bed over, this one does. He knows exactly how Jamie’s lips move when he kisses, he knows that Jamie’s lips are softer than they look and not dry like Stevie’s lips are. He knows the way those lips cling to his for a fraction of a second as they pull apart, unwilling to be separated.

 

He knows that Jamie Carragher can kiss a man one minute and throw his arm around him the next, banter completely unaffected.

 

“Okay, J. Good night.”  
  
“Night, Stevie.”  
  
Stevie goes quiet, closes his eyes and slows his breathing, trying to seem asleep so Jamie can get a move on and start jerking off.  
  
Soon enough, it happens, a subtle sound of fabric against fabric as Jamie moves under the covers and slides a hand beneath his boxers.  
  
Stevie closes his eyes and pictures it, pictures Jamie biting down onto his lower lip to keep quiet. He imagines the rush of air as Jamie breathes, the speed of his exhale the only way that he can show how good he’s making himself feel.  
  
He imagines himself, kissing Jamie while he touches himself, which he teaches Stevie how he likes to be touched, while he touches Stevie back. In his fantasy, Jamie just knows how Stevie needs to be touched, without needing to be told.  
  
Stevie can feel himself growing harder and he’s so involved in the fantasy in his head, he almost misses the best part of the action in the adjacent bed. The gasp, the sudden intake of breath with the slow release as Jamie gathers himself again.  
  
Then there’s the shift of fabric against fabric again as he cleans himself up and tucks himself back into his loose sleeping pants.  
  
Stevie’s more excited than usual tonight. He moves carefully to relieve the pressure against his boxers.

 

It’s better than ever, because now he knows what Jamie kisses like. He’s gone from denial to acceptance in one fell swoop, and he might be ashamed of it, but not so ashamed that he isn’t imagining what Jamie would be like in bed.

 

Stevie’s never been with a man before, so what happens between their legs is kind of a black box in his fantasies. He can imagine touching Jamie, or Jamie touching him, can even imagine Jamie going down on him, but when it comes to actual sex, he’s not sure what it would be like. So it doesn’t feature much in the film that rolls behind his closed eyelids at night. Mostly it’s just Jamie, whispering filthy things into his ear, kissing him on the mouth and on his neck, touching him—

 

He comes with a gasp. “J—“ he breathes, praying that Jamie’s too fast asleep to have heard it.

 

It’s quiet for a moment, and then there’s a new sound.

 

A very quiet, completely unsexy sigh.  
  
“I am _so_ going to hell,” Jamie mutters, sounding unimpressed with himself.  
  
“No you’re not.” Stevie says, the words slipping out almost without his consent. He’s absolutely mortified, but he can’t allow Jamie to blame himself, either.

 

“Yeah, I definitely am. For corrupting an innocent.”

 

“I—I’m not that innocent,” Stevie says hesitantly, “if you knew what I thought about sometimes—you wouldn’t think I was innocent anymore.”

 

“Having a wank doesn’t make you any less innocent, Steve.”

 

“Does listening to you have a wank and then having a wank make me less innocent?”

 

“No,” Jamie says quietly, “it’s not like you could turn your ears off.”

 

“I take naps in the coach so I can stay up and listen to it all every time we have an away game,” Stevie says bluntly, dimly aware that this is going in a way he didn’t expect it to.

 

“It’s normal to be fascinated by other people’s sexual habits at this age.” Jamie’s a little more tentative now.

 

Somehow, this has gone from Stevie not wanting to embarrass himself to wanting to make sure Jamie knows he’s an adult, a grown man, and he gets off to him.

 

He says as much. “I get off to the thought of you,” he says bluntly, “even at home, when you’re not there.”

 

Jamie sighs and gets out of his bed. His shadowy figure crosses over to Stevie’s bed in the dark. “Budge over,” he orders quietly, settling in next to Stevie.

 

Stevie does move to the other side, but not too far, and when Jamie slips into bed with him, they’re close. “What do we do now?” he asks, wondering if maybe he went a little too far.

 

“I think next time, we can leave the light on. Is that okay?”

 

All the oxygen’s been sucked out of the room, and if Stevie hadn’t literally _just_ wanked, he’d be hard all over again. “Yeah, sure,” he hears himself say, and his voice sounds like it belongs to someone else, someone whose throat is bone-dry.

 

Jamie turns away from him, and not too long after that, they’re both asleep.

 

The day of the first time he’s officially allowed to watch, Stevie’s so nervous he worries he might not even be able to get it up. He loses focus and thinks about it every time he zones out. He spends more time than usual staring at Jamie, too. More specifically, he stares at his legs and his backside, watching how the muscles shift, flexing and relaxing with each step.  
  
Then the night comes, and Jamie lays in his bed, atop the covers specifically for Stevie’s viewing pleasure.  
  
The tube of lube is out on the nightstand. Even getting to see it, getting to see its nondescript beige color and how it’s been used so much it looks like a half used tube of toothpaste, with a fold in the middle.  
  
Jamie’s still got his boxers and his shirt on, and now that it’s the moment of truth, he’s nervous, fiddling with his shirt.  
  
Stevie’s sitting up, wearing his pajamas and trying to remember how to breathe so he doesn’t die before he gets to watch Jamie jerk off.  
  
“I’ve never performed for an audience before.” Jamie’s voice wavers in the middle, a stark reminder that for all that he acts so much older and more experienced than Stevie is, he isn’t.  
  
“Close your eyes,” Stevie suggests, “pretend I’m not here. Think about whoever you usually think about.” He just about manages not to ask who it is that Jamie thinks about—that feels like a step too far.  
  
Jamie takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. His hand slides under his waistband, touch slow and tentative and frustratingly invisible to Stevie.  
  
He’s on the verge of saying something when Jamie finally takes himself out of his boxers altogether.  
  
Stevie’s mouth goes dry, and his mind goes numb while his heart starts to pound in his chest.  
  
After a couple slow strokes, Jamie grabs the lube and slicks himself up, pausing a moment before throwing the tube at Stevie.  
  
It’s an acknowledgement of the whole thing and one that goes right to Stevie’s dick.  
  
He lets out a breathy _fuck_ that shatters the silence. He freezes for a second, wondering if he’s just ruined everything.  
  
But Jamie just bites his lip and keeps stroking himself, arching his back and thrusting his hips up into it. He’s quiet for maybe thirty seconds before he decides to stop filtering himself.  
  
After that, there are quiet gasps, whispered obscenities and choked off moans, each of which only serves to push Stevie closer to the edge.  
  
Stevie realizes suddenly that they don’t have to take turns anymore. He lifts his hips and shimmies out of his boxers, which fall to the floor in a pool of fabric.  
  
Jamie opens his eyes and watches him, still stroking himself lazily, still making all manner of delightful sounds that might as well have been tailor-made for Stevie, that’s how well he responds to them.

 

It’s definitely a little bit gay to be watching another man jack off—like, this is definitely past the point of plausible deniability—but not a single brain cell in Stevie’s head manages to care.

 

He watches Jamie climax, watches the spurts of semen and feels a visceral thrill just before he comes too.

 

All those things Stevie knows about Jamie... Now he knows what Jamie looks like when he comes, too. Well, not what his face looks like, because his attention had been well and truly elsewhere at that particular moment, watching the minute flexing of his abs that preceded his orgasm.

 

He makes a mental note to watch Jamie’s face next time.

 

“Come on, clean yourself up,” Jamie says, yawning. His penis is out and flaccid, now, and he’s got a tissue in his hand, “we need to get to sleep.” He tucks himself back into his boxers, and that in itself is yet another intimate thing to file away.

 

Somehow the _after_ —the cleanup, the yawning, the keeping the light on for Stevie—feels almost as private, almost as precious as getting to watch Jamie stroke himself to climax.

 

Stevie does, and Jamie waits until he’s done to turn off the light.

 

“This stays here,” Jamie says quietly, in the darkness, “this stays between us, just in this room. Outside of this room, we’re the same as we always were. Teammates and friends, okay?”

 

“Okay. Good night, J.”

 

“Good night, Steve.”

 

Stevie can hear him turning over to face the window. His mind is racing so fast he doesn’t quite think he’ll be able to fall asleep, but post-orgasmic hormones are a hell of a thing, and he’s out like a light in under five minutes.

 

\---  


The next time, he remembers to pay more attention to Jamie’s face, and he finds out that it’s an absolute work of art when he’s masturbating. His eyes, half-lidded as he strokes himself lazily. He must be imagining something, and what it is he sees behind his eyelids is the only thing Stevie doesn’t know about him now. He’s gorgeous, though. He bites his lip sometimes, and his perfect mouth falls open into an O when he comes.

 

Stevie doesn’t expect the nighttime mutual wanks to start turning into daily observations. He doesn’t expect to sit next to Jamie on the coach and notice how much warmth he gives off, how he can feel it even when they’re not in direct contact. He doesn’t expect to see Jamie talk and find himself focusing on the movement of those full lips instead of listening to the words he says. He doesn’t expect to wake up one night in his bed from a dream that involves Jamie’s mouth taking him in inch by inch, those eyes watching him as those lips start to suck—

 

Stevie wakes up with wet boxers, so unabashedly turned on that he forgets to be embarrassed until he has to dump his sheets into the hamper.

 

The wet dream isn’t a frequent occurrence, though. He has them now and then, usually on nights he doesn’t wank before bed, and always on nights when he’s at home instead of on the road in some hotel room with Jamie in the other bed.

 

\---

 

Jamie’s nice to him, too, and that definitely doesn’t help. He’s so ridiculously kind that Stevie almost feels bad casting him as the lead in all his fantasies.

 

He hasn’t so much as looked twice at a girl in what feels like weeks.

 

\---  


The fifth time they wank together with the lights on, Stevie gets out of his bed and climbs in next to Jamie, who raises an eyebrow but doesn’t protest. That’s enough for Stevie, and he keeps his hands to himself, but the proximity helps—he can hear Jamie’s choked off moans a thousand times better, he can see the veins of his dick as he strokes himself.

 

He comes first, just from watching, and Jamie follows not too long after. They clean up in silence, and Stevie starts to shift, starts to make his way back to his own bed, when Jamie lays a hand on his wrist. It’s his right hand, the one that had just been on his dick, and Stevie notices that he’s not the slightest bit disgusted.

 

“You can stay,” Jamie offers quietly. It’s a stroke of lightning. Stevie’s heart is beating a million miles a minute, and carefully, he settles down in Jamie’s bed, squishing the unused pillow just right. Once he’s settled, Jamie reaches out to turn off the lamp and they both lay there.

 

It could be awkward. By all rights, it _should_ be awkward. But they’re saved yet again from the daily exhaustion of training and traveling combined with a dose of post-orgasm fatigue, and if there is awkwardness, neither of them is awake long enough to notice it.

 

In the morning Stevie wakes up on his side with Jamie’s arm wrapped around his waist, and he realizes that they’re spooning. His mind is still a little too fuzzy to be bothered, so he just lays there for a few minutes, relaxing until the memories from the previous night come filtering in and suddenly Jamie’s warmth feels like too much, everything feels like too much, and in the daylight, he’s afraid that everything will be ruined. So he carefully edges out from under Jamie’s arm and replaces his body with a pillow, fleeing to the bathroom to hide behind the pretense of needing a shower.

 

It’s a pattern. It works. For awhile, at least.

 

When they’re away, Stevie and Jamie watch each other wank—and it really is mutual, Stevie comes to realize, when he glances up at Jamie’s face only to find his gaze fixed on Stevie’s hand, staring at him as he strokes himself.

 

That’s its own novel form of pleasure. He’d known for awhile now that he got off on Jamie getting off, but he’d had no idea how much he got off on Jamie getting off _to him_. It feels altogether different from listening to Jamie in the dark and wondering who he sees behind his closed eyes. It’s proof, undeniable and incontrovertible that Jamie—god, somehow, for some reason, Jamie’s actually into him.

 

At least on some surface level where watching Stevie get himself off helps Jamie get himself off. It’s not love, but hell, Stevie’ll take it.

 

\---

 

One night, in their room for the night in some hotel in Leicester, in their bed, Stevie gathers up the nerve to ask for what he wants.

 

They’re in their usual routine, and it’s just as exciting as the first time, but a thousand times less terrifying, now.

 

Jamie’s got the lube out, set on the bed between him and Stevie so they can both use it, and he’s about to start stroking himself—

 

“Can I do it?” Stevie asks, mouth moving without his permission.

 

“What?” Jamie’s staring at him now, dumbstruck.

 

“Can I try?” Stevie has no idea when he got to be so brave, but if this doesn’t work, he might have to fake his own death and move to South America. _Esteban_ , he thinks manically, _Esteban Gerard_. Oh God, the Scouse accent is going to leave him alone and utterly friendless, and nobody in South America will understand him at all…

 

Jamie’s still looking at him, and he swallows. Stevie watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs with the motion.

 

“Yeah,” Jamie croaks, “yeah, I guess you can try.”

 

Jamie’s dick is warm, and that really shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is. But it’s warm, and it’s odd, doing this to another man. The angle’s different from when he does it to himself. The motion is the same, but it feels strange.

 

Jamie shuffles a little bit closer to him and slicks up his fingers and wraps his hand around Stevie’s dick, returning the favor. Stevie’s teenage brain is completely short-circuiting, and he doesn’t know how to think or breathe or be a person in even the simplest and most elementary of ways, not with Jamie’s hand on him, hesitantly stroking up and down.

 

“A little bit tighter,” Jamie murmurs to him, “hold me a little bit tighter.” Stevie firms up his grip and Jamie lets out a gasp.

 

“Yes, perfect,” he praises, and there’s a spark somewhere in the melted goo that used to be Stevie’s brain, a spark of satisfaction at his performance.

 

Stevie tries to say something, but his throat is dry, and it doesn’t come out. He licks his lips—Jamie watches him, pupils dilated, and that’s yet another detail that’s getting locked away for the wank bank.

 

“F-faster, J, _please_ —”

 

Jamie obliges him, and Stevie returns the favor, mostly because his brain isn’t capable of understanding two different rhythms at the same time, especially not right this minute.

 

He comes ridiculously early, all over Jamie’s fingers, and he can’t even feel bad about it, not when Jamie’s in the same situation next to him, lasting only a handful of seconds longer.

 

There’s something else that Stevie doesn’t know about Jamie, he realizes, a lightning strike to his brain.

 

He doesn’t know what his come tastes like.

 

He lifts his fingers to his mouth and tastes curiously. Salty with just a slight bitterness. He hums thoughtfully at the taste of it.

 

Jamie groans watching him. “You are unreal,” he says fondly, “you can’t just _do_ that, I can’t get it up again for another few hours!”

 

“Just wanted to know,” Stevie says softly. It’s the truth, and Jamie will never know exactly how much Stevie wants to know about him.

 

Jamie hands him a tissue and watches him clean up, and leans over to kiss him, a chaste press of lips to the corner of his mouth. “Good night, Stevie,” he murmurs, turning off the lamp.

 

Stevie, either brave or reckless or both, lays his head on Jamie’s shoulder, making no pretenses of leaving any distance between them.

 

There’s a hand in his hair a few minutes later, and a voice humming quietly, and he lets himself sleep.

 

\---

 

He wakes up first in the morning, and this time, he allows himself a little bit of time. Jamie’s eyes are closed and they’re still close to each other. Stevie’d shifted off of Jamie’s shoulder during the course of the night and Jamie’s flipped over to sleep on his stomach, one arm thrown over Stevie’s middle.

 

There’s something enticing about the way Jamie sleeps. He must’ve seen it dozens of times, by now, if not more than that. But there’s something so delicate about it. Stevie feels an itch in his fingers, a quiet urge to touch him, somehow. He shifts in infinitesimal increments, pausing after each miniscule movement to see if Jamie stirs. He doesn’t, and eventually, Stevie lays his fingers into his hair. It’s so soft, and he just memorizes the feeling of it beneath his fingers, warmed in the sunlight.

 

Jamie shifts a little bit closer, so he’s laying his head on Stevie’s arm now, instead of his pillow. Stevie can feel the feather-light touch of Jamie’s eyelashes against his skin.

 

“G’mornin’,” Jamie mumbles against his skin. It scares the living daylights out of Stevie, makes him jerk in surprise. Jamie makes a soft sound, clearly unhappy with the sudden movement.

 

“Morning, J,” Stevie says, suddenly self-conscious about the way his voice sounds, first thing in the morning.

 

Jamie turns just slightly, so he can look at Stevie with both his eyes. “We’re okay, right?”

 

Stevie’s throat tightens. “Yeah, J, we’re okay.”

 

“I don’t want this to affect us out there,” Jamie continues. His voice is still rough with sleep, but his eyes are too alert.

 

“It won’t.” Stevie promises.

 

It might be the first time he’s ever lied to Jamie Carragher.

 

It won’t be the last.

 

\---  


They keep doing it.

 

It keeps escalating. One night, they’re sitting naked, side by side in bed.

 

“I have an idea,” Jamie says suddenly, and just from the tone of his voice, Stevie knows that this idea is going to change everything for them.

 

He makes an inquiring noise as he reaches out and wraps his fingers around Jamie’s dick.

 

Jamie lets out a quiet little gasp, head falling back against the cushioned headboard. “Come here—come here, Steve—“ he mutters, putting his hands on Stevie’s hips and shifting him so he’s straddling Jamie’s thighs.

 

For a moment, he thinks—and it’s a little bit scary, because what if Jamie’s too big and he doesn’t fit, or what if it hurts and it ruins everything they have between them? But even amidst that fear, there are tendrils of excitement shooting through him, little sparks on his back where Jamie’s hands are pressed against his skin.

 

Jamie pulls them close, chest to chest, eye to eye. When he leans in, Stevie thinks for a second that he’s going for a kiss, and he closes his eyes, only to feel a hand wrapped around his cock, and to feel something soft against him. The hand is moving slowly, and Stevie’s eyes snap open as he realizes.

 

Jamie’s holding them both in his hand, slow upstrokes and steady downstrokes, and he looks absolutely enchanted at the sight. It’s like he can’t take his eyes off them, off of what they look like together, sliding in his slick grip, sliding not just against his fingers, but against each other—

 

Stevie can’t quite stand it. He bites the bullet and leans in to kiss Jamie desperately. Jamie lets out a sound that might have wanted to be a word, but Stevie doesn’t quite make it out.

 

After a second, he relaxes into the kiss and—oh, god, he opens his mouth and Stevie keeps kissing him, desperate and horny and young and this is the closest he’s ever been to anyone and he’s so overstimulated with everything, he can’t last—

 

He doesn’t last. It’s less embarrassing than it should be, considering Jamie’s right behind him. He keeps stroking them even after they finish, for another few strokes, smearing their come all over themselves and Stevie’s heart does something peculiar in his chest, thinking about how his sperm is mixing with Jamie’s and bathing his skin.

 

But after a few seconds of that, they’re both oversensitive and Stevie lets out a little hiss at the feeling of Jamie’s big, rough hands rubbing at his already frayed nerves.

 

Jamie stops instantly at the sound and looks up at him, dazed. Stevie doesn’t move, and he leans in for another kiss. It’s something new, the kissing, he thinks almost deliriously, and he wants so much for it to be etched into his skin. He leans forward, only for his lips to meet rough stubble.

 

Jamie had turned his head to dodge the kiss. It makes Stevie hurt in his chest, and the moment, if that’s even what it was, shatters. He leans his head down and rests his forehead against Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie does the same, leaning forward to lay his head on Stevie’s shoulder, too, and this is its own kind of moment, different from before, but not as different as Stevie thought it would be.

 

There are rules to this, he thinks to himself, and touching is okay, but kissing is not. Not afterwards. He learns the rules and internalizes them.

 

After a little while, Jamie lifts his head up and his hands find themselves at Stevie’s hips again, and this time, they nudge him off of his lap and next to him on the bed. He gets up and fetches a damp towel from the bathroom for him to clean up and then they’re both laying in bed again at the end of it.

 

They say good night and fall asleep. Stevie dreams of kissing a boy with dark hair and beautiful eyes and dimples that carve deep into his cheeks, and in his dreams, Jamie always, always kisses him back.

 

He wakes and looks at Jamie’s face, at his slack jaw and his hand shoved under the pillow, and wonders if Jamie ever dreams of him the way he dreams of Jamie.

 

\---

 

It gets better, after that.  
  
The sex is amazing. There are times when Jamie holds him so close that it’s like he wants to merge their two bodies into one. He has this thing for rubbing their semen into their skin after they’re done. Stevie always wants to laughs when he does it, but he can’t ever quite manage, because he understands it, wanting to take part of himself and rub it into Jamie’s skin, hoping that somehow, it’ll sink through his skin and fuse itself to something deeper. Some days, Stevie thinks he wants that part of him to fuse to Jamie’s bones, to float through his bloodstream.

 

Some days, he wants it to sink into Jamie’s heart and soul and mind and never, never leave. Those are the days he has to swallow past a lump in his throat when they lay together in the darkness, waiting for sleep to find them.

 

Instead, when Jamie does that, Stevie leans in for a kiss, hoping it will say more than his words ever could. It never lands on Jamie’s lips. As soon as they’ve climaxed, it’s back to being friends that wank each other off sometimes. Those sorts of friends don’t kiss, apparently. Not after they’re done with the benefits, at least.   
  
One glorious night, he even cleans Stevie up using his tongue, which is such exquisite torture Stevie’s almost sure it counts as a war crime, doing that to someone who can’t get it up again for at least half an hour.  
  
He tells Jamie that and Jamie laughs and tells him to enjoy the stamina while he’s young because one day it’ll take a hell of a lot more than half an hour recovery time between rounds.  
  
So yes, it gets much, much better.  
  
But it also gets _so_ much worse.

 

Stevie keeps dreaming, and the dreams start to change. It’s not just about them in bed, panting and groaning until they climax, though he definitely has those dreams too. It’s them sitting in a movie theater, not paying any attention to the movie because they’re too busy kissing in the dark.

 

The kissing is what gets him. After being lucky enough to kiss Jamie, it feels impossible to _not_ kiss him every time Stevie sees him.

 

They do kiss. They kiss a lot, actually, but only when they’re wanking each other off.

 

\---

“God, J, I think I’m in love with you,” he blurts out to Jamie one night.

 

Jamie has the strangest look on his face. He looks almost pained, but he smiles anyway, reaching out and cupping Stevie’s cheek in his hand. “You’re still young,” he says softly, “I think you’re confusing lust with love. One day you’ll look back on this and laugh because you’ll know what love really is.”

 

He leans down and presses his lips to Stevie’s once, gentle, and then he pulls back. It’s the first time they’ve kissed outside of when they’re having sex. Jamie stays in bed, though, and doesn’t object when Stevie wraps a tentative arm around him.

 

“I really think I love you, J,” he says again.

 

“It’s just a crush, love. I know it feels like it’s everything, but it’s just a crush. It’s natural, to have a crush on someone older, if they’re kind to you.”

 

“I don’t think this is just a crush,” Stevie muses, “I’ve had crushes before. Had a crush on Redders, even. This is more than that.”

 

“Well, I’m prettier than Redders, that’s probably it,” Jamie says with a cheeky little grin.

 

Stevie laughs at the joke, but he can’t help but ache, somewhere deep inside himself.

 

He waits until Jamie falls asleep that night and looks at his face, smooth and relaxed in sleep.

 

“I’m pretty sure it’s because I love you. J,” he whispers, shifting closer and laying his head on Jamie’s shoulder. He closes his eyes and, against his will, allows himself to dream.

 

Before he drifts off, he feels Jamie’s arm wrapping around him, keeping him close.

 

\---

 

Stevie’s walking back into the locker room, long after everyone else is gone. He’d forgotten his keys, so he’s got to go back and get them. He isn’t even really thinking about it, as he walks into the room.

 

He hears the soft, distinct sound of people kissing. He freezes, considering leaving, but he’s curious, too.

 

He takes a step, trying to float so his weight doesn’t make the floor creak or groan and give him away.

 

After that first step, he can see them. It’s Jamie, pressing a man against the lockers and they’re kissing, slow and filthy and deep, and the other man lets out a quiet moan, and that’s when Stevie realizes that it’s Mickey.

 

Mickey’s got his hands under Jamie’s shirt. “Want this off,” he mumbles, and Jamie pulls away for a second and obliges him.

 

Bare skin against bare skin—they’re pressed together, chest, abdomen, _hips_ —

 

Then they’re kissing again, and Jamie pulls away to press his lips to Mickey’s cheek, his jaw, his neck.

 

“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” he murmurs against the skin, voice ragged and hoarse.

 

Mickey must react to that in much the same way as Stevie would, and he yanks Jamie back in for another kiss, as if being away from him is just too much to ask. One of his legs comes up to wrap around Jamie’s waist, trying to pull him in impossibly closer.

 

Stevie slips out of the room and down the hall and finds the nearest bathroom to try and gather his thoughts.

 

He lets himself curse once, quietly. There’s an ache in his chest, and he tries not to think the word _heartbreak_ , but it feels an awful lot like that.

 

It doesn’t help that his stupid brain has already decided to take the whole thing and twist it into some fantasy where he’s the one being pinned against the lockers by Jamie—where he’s the one that Jamie looks at and whispers _so fuckin’ gorgeous_ , in that beautiful, ragged voice, as if he’s lost to the moment, lost to the man in front of him.

 

He waits in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before he ventures forth. He’s careful to be loud, whistling to make sure they’ll know he’s coming. When he gets into the dressing room, they’re just sitting, looking for all the world like two friends just having a chat.

 

“Oh, you two are still here?” Stevie asks, forcing himself to sound surprised, “you should probably get home.”

 

“So should you,” Mickey says, rolling his eyes.

 

Stevie goes to his locker and retrieves his keys. “I know, just forgot these,” he says simply, “see you later, lads.”

 

He leaves after that, and if he hears low voices talking, he forces himself not to turn around, forces himself not to scream at them that he _knows_ , forces himself not to ask Mickey if _he_ knows too, if he knows what Jamie’s face looks like when he comes, if he knows that Jamie cuddles at night when there’s someone else in the same bed as him, if he knows that he and Jamie have been wanking together for months now—

 

He gets into his car and his trembling fingers struggle to fit the key into the ignition. He manages it eventually, and squeezes the steering wheel tight to steady his hands.

 

By the time he gets home, his hands are cramping, and when he takes them off the steering wheel, they feel weak.

 

He pushes his food around his plate and when his mother asks him why, he tells her it’s because he didn’t perform well at training. His father raises an eyebrow, and opens his mouth, probably to deliver a lecture on how to deal with failure, but his mother reaches out and places her hand on his forearm, and he shuts his mouth abruptly. Paulie talks about school for a little while, and then about work, trying to fill in the silence while Stevie mopes.

 

He goes up to his room after dinner, skipping Match of the Day and brushing off his family’s concerned comments with a transparent excuse about how he’s tired.

 

He lays in bed and thinks about it, thinks about Jamie.

 

_I think you’re confusing lust with love._

 

He hadn’t been. At least, he didn’t think he had been. But maybe Jamie had, maybe that’s why Jamie said it, maybe for him it really _was_ just lust and not love at all, and he assumed that Stevie was just the same, because they’d always been on the same page before…

 

He closes his eyes and that image floats back to the forefront of his mind, the way Mickey had gasped and opened his mouth when Jamie had kissed him, the way they’d been so close, skin on skin—

 

_So fuckin’ gorgeous._

 

He wonders again, if Mickey knows the things he knows about Jamie. He hopes not. God, he hopes not. There’s something deep inside him, something he doesn’t even quite understand yet, that wants to know some part of Jamie just for himself, wants to own some tiny piece of Jamie the way Jamie owns the whole of him without even knowing it.

 

Unless he _does_ know and just doesn’t care. But that’s not like Jamie, really, or at least not like the Jamie he thinks he knows.

 

But if there’s one lesson he’s learned today, it’s that he doesn’t know Jamie nearly as well as he thought he did, so maybe this is just more of the same.

 

\---  


He goes to Redders the next day after training and very quietly asks if his rooming assignment can be traded with Mickey’s.

 

Redders raises an eyebrow, a silent demand for more information.

 

Stevie doesn’t know how much he can share, but he knows that telling his captain that Jamie and Mickey were busy making out in the locker room and might have an easier time having sex if they were in the same room probably isn’t the right move. So he just shrugs.

 

“They used to room together before, I think they’d like to room together again.”

 

Redders looks at him again, scrutinizing him. For all that the press makes him out to be a pretty face and nothing more, he’s observant. He knows how to read people, even if he doesn’t spend his free time pursuing a university degree like Macca or reading classic literature like Sami.

 

“Anything you say to me is confidential,” he says finally, “so if you’re having a problem, you can tell me about it. Doesn’t have to be now, but in the future.”

 

Stevie nods.

 

“Do you want them to know it was you asking for a change or should I make it out to be my decision or the boss’s?”

 

“I don’t want them knowing it was me,” Stevie says, very quietly.

 

Redders hums in acknowledgement and lays a heavy, warm hand on Stevie’s shoulder. “You’re a good lad, Steven. Thanks for coming and talking to me about this.”

 

Stevie mumbles something and leaves.

 

Maybe it’ll be easier, if Jamie isn’t in the next bed over while he thinks about him pressing Mickey up against the lockers—or the same bed, though Stevie’s not sure he could let that happen anyway, now. Would it be cheating? It would feel like cheating, for him at least, and then there would be a whole conversation about it, during which he’d probably tell Jamie what he’d seen, and the whole thing would just be a mess.

 

In the early days, he’d thought he’d do anything, to attract Jamie’s attention, to attract him, period. It’s a strange relief, to know that there’s a line he won’t cross.

 

Not even for Jamie.

 

Not even if he still wants to.

 

Not even if he wants it so desperately his bones _ache_ with it.

 

New rooming assignments are announced on the bus once they arrive at the hotel, before everyone gets off and retrieves their bags and trudges up to their rooms. It ends up looking like a routine reshuffling of rooming assignments. Everyone gets moved around a little bit, in the name of team bonding.

 

Stevie’s assigned to room with Redders, which is probably the best of a less than ideal situation.

 

When Jamie’s roommate gets announced, Stevie looks out the window and clenches his jaw, determined not to let himself get upset. He imagines the pair of them look absolutely delighted, and he tries not to let any bitterness ferment in his stomach at the thought of it.

 

Redders pats his arm a few seconds later, smiling at him and pulling him up to grab his things. Stevie looks up at him with a gratitude he can’t speak, and the captain just ruffles his hair affectionately. It’s a silent exchange, but it means everything, to know that even now, someone’s got his back, even though Redders doesn’t know everything that’s going on.

 

Jamie sits next to him at dinner that night. “Bad luck that we’re not roommates anymore,” he says, frowning.

 

“Yeah. Bad luck.” Stevie tries to force himself to put the appropriate amount of remorse into his voice, but he doesn’t have the energy for it.

 

“They don’t really do roommate reassignments like this all that often,” Jamie persists.

 

“Something new the boss and I talked about,” Redders interjects with a little smile, wrapping a casual arm around the back of Stevie’s chair. Somehow, in the few seconds that Jamie’s eyes aren’t on him, Stevie manages to find some semblance of composure.

 

“To improve morale, right? That’s what you said on the coach,” he pipes up.

 

Jamie’s head whips back to look at him, eyes narrowed. “You knew?”

 

“I found out on the bus,” Stevie says calmly. It’s another lie. It doesn’t hurt as much as the first one does, Stevie finds.

 

“You could’ve said something.” Jamie’s got hurt in his voice—actual _pain_ , and that’s the thing that hurts Stevie most.

 

Strange. The man he loves is with someone else, and yet he still can’t bear the sight of him in pain.

 

He wonders if it’s always like that, when one person loves harder than the other.

 

“Steve? You could’ve told me, lad.”

 

“You were gonna find out in a few hours anyway. What difference would it have made?”

 

Jamie looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, and after a long moment of silence, he sighs. “I guess it wouldn’t have made a difference. You’re right.”

 

\---  


Redders is a good roommate. He’s tidy enough, he’s nice whenever they do talk, and Stevie is incredibly grateful for him.

 

But he’s not Jamie. He’s a social butterfly, and Robbie and Macca end up in their room much of the time until it gets a little late and everyone gets kicked out to go to sleep. They play card games, and laugh and joke and it’s not unpleasant, but it’s not that quiet domesticity that he shared with Jamie.

 

Stevie doesn’t wank at night anymore. He’s tried that once and got bitten for it.

 

That being said, he’s an eighteen year old boy just getting used to thinking of himself as a man. He may be one of only a handful of eighteen year olds getting minutes regularly in the Premier League, but he’s still just the same as the other boys.

 

Which is to say that the does, of course, still wank. That first morning after, he finds out that Redders wakes up quite early and favors a stretching and massage session with the physio to make sure he’s loose, first thing in the morning, to keep from straining or spraining anything later on.

 

That leaves Steven Gerrard, eighteen year old who no longer masturbates at night, alone for twenty or thirty minutes each morning.

 

So yes, he does still wank. He’s petrified of Redders catching him, though, so he only does it in the shower, biting his bicep to muffle any moans. That’s yet another thing he’s terrified of—calling Jamie’s name while he’s in the shower touching himself and Redders figuring the whole thing out.

 

Or worse yet, Redders thinking that Stevie’s actually touching himself and thinking of _him_ instead of Jamie _Carragher_ , which would probably lead to yet another roommate reshuffle in the name of team bonding. One is odd, but two would be downright suspicious, and he doesn’t think there’s anyone else on the team he’d want to room with anyway, at this point.

 

He still thinks about Jamie when he does. He’s not proud of it, certainly, and he tries to break the habit, tries to imagine naked women with their perfect breasts, tries to envision literally any other man besides Jamie, tries to envision actors with perfect golden skin and abs that flex with their every movement—

 

In the end, they all turn into Jamie, in his bed with a hoarse gasp of his name, a familiar, ragged whisper of so fuckin’ gorgeous, and the press of his lips on Stevie’s, telling him how well he’s doing.

 

When Stevie weighs the balance, he finds the disturbing nature of everyone he fantasizes about turning into Jamie when he gets closer and closer to climax outweighs the guilt he feels about masturbating to the thought of a taken man. His conscience isn’t quite at ease about it, but he figures he’s not hurting anybody, really.

 

Jamie and Mickey tend to keep to themselves a little bit more. They still come to Stevie’s room to hang out with the English boys on the team, but they tend to be the first ones to leave. It’s usually around fifteen minutes before the others head out, and they communicate wordlessly, through looks and touches so blatant that Stevie wonders if he could possibly be the only person who knows they’re sleeping together.

 

The touches are on the small of the back, on the soft underside of the wrist, on the thigh but closer to hip than knee. They linger, not pats or friendly claps but tender strokes, even approaching the boundaries of petting.

 

Stevie tries not to notice.

 

Well, he can’t help but notice, but he tries not to obsess about it.

 

Okay, he can’t help but obsess about it a little bit, in his heart of hearts, but he tries not to _stare_ , at least.

 

That much, he can actually do.

 

\---  


It’s just another one of those days, the morning of an away match, falling asleep to the sound of Redders’ steady snoring in the next bed over, and waking up in the room alone, because he’s off to work with the physio.

 

He heads to the bathroom immediately, because he’s overslept by fifteen minutes and he needs to hurry if he wants to finish before Redders gets back.

 

The image of Jamie in his head is particularly vivid today, for some reason, and it almost feels like he can hear his voice, telling him how gorgeous he is, how good he looks like this. He can almost feel the weight of his gaze on his body, bare in the warm water.

 

He bites down harder than he meant to, when he comes. It nearly breaks the skin, and by the time he’s cleaned up and dried himself off, he’s already got a bruise. It wouldn’t be so bad if the teethmarks weren’t so terribly obvious, but they are, and it’s going to be an absolute bitch to try to explain this to the other boys.

 

So he figures he won’t. He’ll just keep his arms down to make sure his sleeves don’t ride up, he’ll wear a zip-up hoodie down to breakfast and to warm up in, and if he plays—well, if he plays, he’ll just pray that the sleeves on the kit are long enough to cover the damn thing.

 

He wishes for a moment that he wore a long-sleeved kit, the way Jamie always does, because he thinks his arms are too skinny. Stevie shakes his head and smiles at himself for a second.

 

Jamie’s arms are perfect, and he can only hope that Mickey makes that clear, since Stevie isn’t allowed to anymore.

 

He looks at himself in the mirror, at his scrawny body and lovestruck expression.

 

 _You’ve got to get over this_ , he says sternly to his reflection, who nods in agreement. _You can’t let it affect your career._

 

He manages to get through breakfast and warmups easily enough. Jamie sits next to him on the bench, neither of them quite getting the nod this week.

 

They sit there for a long while, for the whole first half and the beginning of the second. Around the hour mark, they’re up comfortably, and the boss tells Stevie to warm up, and pulls off a midfielder.

 

Stevie doesn’t even think about it, just strips off his training top and pulls on the kit, not even noticing that Jamie’s eyes are glued to the blue-purple bruise on his arm.

 

He goes onto the pitch and passes the ball to Redders with his first touch. Redders knocks it into the goal and rushes to pull him into a tight hug, lifting his feet off the ground.

 

Stevie beams at him, fiercely proud of himself, and Redders’ arm stays around his shoulders for a few more seconds before they run back into their positions.

 

There’s some playful ribbing in the dressing room afterwards, talk about how Stevie’s the best thing since sliced bread and such exaggerated praise that part of the fun is coming up with it in the first place.

 

“Hush, you’ll turn his head,” Redders says fondly, ruffling Stevie’s hair, “though if you give me a few more of those, I might be in the running to take the Golden Boot off of Growler this season!”

 

Robbie lets out a little growl for effect and the whole team laughs. For once, Stevie feels like he actually belongs here. There’s no creeping feeling of anxiety, that they’ll realize that he’s a fraud and boot him out. For a moment, a single moment, he knows he’s in the right place, no matter how old he is or isn’t.

 

Jamie’s oddly quiet. Mickey tries to talk to him, but he responds distractedly, with few words.

 

Stevie doesn’t even notice.

 

Okay, he does notice, but only a little bit. He just _observes_ it. After all, it’s not like Jamie’s the center of any room he’s in and Stevie just can’t take his attention off him.

 

They trail out of the dressing room and back out to the coach. Stevie sits in his normal spot, waiting for Redders to come sit next to him.

 

That’s why he’s surprised when Jamie settles in the seat next to him instead, as comfortable as if he’d always sat there and always would.

 

“Redders normally sits here,” Stevie says quietly, not a complaint so much as a statement of fact.

 

“I know. I asked him if I could come sit with you today. Is that okay?”

 

“Yeah, ‘course it’s okay.” Stevie’s insides start quietly misbehaving, and he wishes for solid, dependable Redders, cursing him for switching with Jamie.

 

Jamie chatters for a little while, and once most of their teammates have drifted off to sleep, he looks around cautiously.

 

“What’s this?” he asks gently, taking Stevie’s arm in his hands and pushing up the sleeve of his shirt.

 

“Bruise.” Stevie replies, knowing full well that it’s a weak response.

 

“Did your arm hit someone in the teeth?” Jamie’s smiling sardonically, as if the question amuses him and yet at the same time doesn’t amuse him at all.

 

Stevie shrugs.

 

“Stevie.” Jamie’s voice is serious, all of a sudden, no trace of humor left in it, cynical or otherwise.

 

Stevie doesn’t say a word in response and wonders if it’s worth it to fake being asleep, though that would hardly be convincing less than five seconds after he’d participated in a conversation.

 

“You and Redders have been spending a lot of time together lately,” Jamie says abruptly, and the change of topic is like a breath of fresh air.

 

“He’s a good guy. Looks out for me.”

 

“Is it strange, hanging out with someone so much older than you, though? I know it would feel strange for me, and I’m two years older than you. Does it feel weird to you?”

 

Stevie looks at him blankly. “Not really? He’s a good lad, like I said.”

 

Jamie pushes up the sleeve of his shirt again. “This is not what good lads do, Stevie.”

 

“What?” It doesn’t add up. They were talking about Redders, why was Jamie bringing up the bruise again?

 

“He’s too old for you, mate. He’s way too old for you,” Jamie says seriously.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“You’re too young to be involved with someone his age. There’s no way to bridge that kind of gap in life experience, in romantic experience, in—“ He lowers his voice even more. “In sexual experience.”

 

Stevie laughs, cold and bitter. “ _You think I’m fucking Redders?_ ” he hisses, glancing around again to make sure that nobody can hear them.

 

“The other way around, actually,” Jamie mutters.

 

It takes Stevie another second to process what the hell that even _means_ and when it does, he almost can’t stand the hypocrisy of it.

 

“Maybe it’s just _lust_ , James, and not _love_ at all. What do I know, right?”

 

Jamie looks like he’s just been slapped in the face and he stammers for some sort of reply.

 

“I’m tired,” Stevie says quietly, turning to lean against the window, “I think I need to get some sleep.”

 

He closes his eyes and pretends not to feel Jamie’s eyes on his body.

 

He seethes about it, burns with a quiet, righteous anger for days on end. How dare Jamie have an opinion about his romantic choices now? How dare he do that now, after what he’d said before?

 

And bringing up _age?!_

 

Jamie’s all of _a year and a half_ older than him, and he’d made that age gap out to be the same as a hundred years! So what, that leaves him with exactly no one to date who isn’t within six months of his age? That’s stupid, it doesn’t even make _sense_ —

 

And to go around hurling accusations that Stevie’s sleeping with Redders, when Stevie’s actually _seen_ him making out with Michael, at _work_ of all places!

 

The whole thing only makes him miss Jamie more, in some bizarre, pathetic sense. If this had been anybody else, Jamie would be the person he’d talk to about it. But it’s not. It’s him, Stevie’s favorite person who just also happens to be a complete and utter asshole, and so of course Stevie has nobody to talk to.

 

He keeps it all inside and aches with it every night.

 

He stops touching himself, when the Jamie in his head goes from telling him he’s _so fuckin’ gorgeous_ to telling him that he can’t tell love and lust apart to telling him that Redders is too old to be sleeping with him.

 

\---  


Jamie and Mickey seem to be getting on well enough. But sometimes Stevie looks at them and thinks he sees a bit of strain around Jamie’s eyes.

 

He tries not to pay too much attention to it, because it’s none of his business, really.

 

He tries not to make it obvious to the rest of the team that there’s something wrong between him and Jamie, because some of them are good enough lads who’ll respect their privacy, but there’s at least a handful of nosy pricks who’ll want to know exactly what happened and will do their level, well-intentioned best to fix it.

 

So he still chit-chats with Jamie every day. He still smiles at his jokes. He tries not to resent Michael too much, but they’d never been particularly close, so that part of it wouldn’t be too shocking to any of their teammates. They all know that three tends to be a crowd when the three involved are Jamie, Stevie, and Mickey.

 

Mickey injures himself during a game, just a minor sprain, and he gets sent to do physiotherapy to make sure it doesn’t get worse and he knows how to stretch to avoid it in the future.

 

That’s around when he and Jamie are sitting on the grass, chugging recovery drinks while they watch Redders, Macca, and Robbie all passing the ball back and forth, playing a little game to cool down.

 

It’s quiet, the way it often is between them now, until Jamie speaks.

 

“D’you ever think about leaving?” he asks suddenly, “leaving Liverpool?”

 

Stevie looks at him, and bites back the urge to turn the question around and ask it of Jamie. He meets Jamie’s eyes for a moment and then looks away, surveying the training ground, the kids standing on bins behind the fence to get a glimpse of their heroes kicking a ball around.

 

“This is the dream, J. Leaving’s never crossed my mind. I’m staying until they don’t want me anymore.”

 

Jamie’s lips twitch upwards at the answer.

 

“What about you, J?”

 

“I can’t see myself leaving,” Jamie says, eyes looking far away, into some distant future, “you never know what’ll happen, I guess. But it would take something big, to make me want to leave.”

 

Stevie grins at him then, forgetting for half a moment that Jamie doesn’t belong to him anymore, and never has and probably never will.

 

“Good. I’d be lost without you, y’know.”

 

\---  


Things start to shift, after that. It’s different than it’s ever been. It’s not the infatuated, lovesick looks that Stevie used to give him. It’s not the distance Stevie’d put between them after he found out about Mickey.

 

If anything, it’s almost like it was before any of it started, back when their friendship was simple and straightforward. Back when they made fun of each other, but defended each other to anybody else. Back when they would touch, casually, in the way that friends did, sometimes. Back when Jamie would ruffle Stevie’s hair and tell him how well he’d done in training or what he could’ve done better during a match.

 

It’s like that, only a little more bittersweet, because Stevie can look at him and know the taste of his mouth, the feeling of his skin when it’s slick with sweat, know the feel of those hands on his body.

 

He tries to unknow it all, but he can’t. Part of him doesn’t even want to try, in case he manages to succeed.

 

\---  


Mickey and Jamie have their own problems. Jamie doesn’t tell him about it, but he can see it, in the distance that grows between them, in the way that Jamie sits next to Sami on the coach even when he shares a room—shares a _bed_ —with Mickey. He sees it in the way that he gets to be on the receiving end of Jamie’s radiant smiles more and more often. Sometimes, when he’s not supposed to be close enough to hear, he sees them whispering to each other, voices low, sometimes hurt, sometimes angry.

 

He doesn’t see when it all comes to a head, because Jamie’s smart enough to keep his private business private, even if he can’t stop himself from messing around with his teammates. So it must have happened outside the training ground, or in some empty corner or empty room.

 

Either way, Stevie does know that Jamie comes into training with progressively darker circles, looking more haggard than any twenty-year-old has the right to look.

 

He doesn’t perform well during training and gets chewed out by the coaching staff and the manager and even some of the senior players. Normally, Jamie’d take that sort of criticism well, he was always hungry to learn and improve, but this time, he just looks resigned to it, as if he believes, deep inside himself that not only does he deserves it, but that he can’t do anything to fix it.

 

Stevie looks around the locker room to see if anybody else can see what he’s seeing. Redders is furrowing his brow, looking thoughtfully at Jamie. When training ends, he pulls Jamie aside for a few whispered words. As the players filter out of the dressing room to go back home to their families, they’re the last ones left. Stevie drags his feet on leaving, because as much as he understands that this might be private, he still wants to know.

 

“Steven, go home,” Redders says firmly, with a hint of steel in his voice.

 

“But I—“

 

“I know you’re concerned. If Jamie says you can stay, you can stay, but if not, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave. And next time, I don’t expect to hear any buts, are we clear?”

 

Stevie nods. “Do you want me here, J?”

 

Jamie shrugs, shoulders tense.

 

Stevie reads it as the dismissal it is, and leaves the room, hearing Redders’ voice soften as he speaks to Jamie.

 

“I just need time, I think—“ he hears Jamie say as the dressing room door closes behind him.

 

\---  
The next day, Jamie finds him. “Would you be alright with sharing a room with me again?” he asks point-blank.

 

“But Mickey—“

 

“Has nothing to do with this,” Jamie says firmly, “I’m just asking, because I’m going to ask Redders to reassign me, and if I get a choice, I want it to be with you, but if not, then that’s okay, I can room with Sami or something, and you can stay with Redders.”

 

“No!”

 

“No, you don’t want to room with me?”

 

“No, I’m fine with rooming with you.”

 

Jamie smiles at him, and for a moment, the weariness that had hounded his expression fades away.

 

“Redders will be okay with it?” He asks, and for perhaps the first time since Stevie’s known him, he looks almost shy.

 

Stevie sighs. “We’re not sleeping together, J, I swear. He won’t care if I room with you.”

 

Jamie’s mouth twitches upwards before he schools his expression, and Stevie feels a flutter of something that might almost be called hope.

 

“I’m glad, Stevie. It wasn’t the same, not being with you.”

 

The words make Stevie’s traitorous stomach flip a little bit, completely against his will.

 

\---  
  
When they’re traveling for their next away game, Redders gets up and announces that due to their string of good performances, the boss has decided that everyone can room with whoever they like again.

 

And that’s that. They drag their bags up to their room, each collapsing onto their own bed.

 

Stevie considers how he wants to bring it up, exactly. But he’s a footballer, not a diplomat, so he just comes out and says it. “It can’t be like it was last time, J.”

 

Jamie looks at him for a moment, a strange expression in his eyes. “It could,” he says calmly, “but you don’t want it to be, and that’s okay. Our friendship comes first.”

 

Stevie bites back the retort on the tip of his tongue, wants to tell Jamie that he does want to, actually, but they _can’t_ , because he can’t hurt over it anymore and he just wants to go back to the comfort and safety of being friends.

 

The physical intimacy comes back slowly, after that. It never escalates to the same level, never gets sexual, but slowly, they learn how to sit on each other’s beds while they watch television. They learn how to slide under the covers, in the winter when it starts to get cold.

 

\---  


They’re laying in Jamie’s bed one night, watching telly. Jamie’s got his head on Stevie’s shoulder, and he’s half-asleep, almost dozing.

 

Stevie wraps an arm around him to pull him closer and lets his hand stroke through Jamie’s soft hair, trying not to think too hard about it.

 

Jamie lets out a satisfied hum, curling a little bit closer, and once the film ends, Stevie reaches for the remote and turns off the telly, and reaches over Jamie’s body to turn off the lamp, and starts to inch his way out of Jamie’s bed so he can go over to his own.

 

“Stay,” Jamie murmurs to him, voice warm and fuzzy with sleep.

 

Stevie does.

 

He nearly has a heart attack when he wakes up with his face pressed against Jamie’s neck, but he manages to slow his heart rate by the time Jamie shifts awake and gives him a sleepy smile.

 

“Morning,” he croaks, and Stevie echoes him, shifting away and sitting up as fast as he can without making it unnecessarily awkward.

 

The next time they fall into bed together, Stevie lays awake for a little while, reveling in the feeling of Jamie’s arm, thrown casually—possessively—over his stomach as he snores quietly.

 

“I missed this,” he confesses in a whisper to the dark room, “I really missed this.”

 

Jamie makes a small sound, some sort of disruption to his snores, and Stevie’s heart starts to race until Jamie settles into his normal breathing pattern again.

 

Stevie stops using his bed. Sure, he’ll sit on it, sometimes, if he’s just lounging, or if he’s waiting for Jamie to get dressed so they can go join the team for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, but mostly, they stay in Jamie’s bed, and they don’t talk about why.

 

He notices that Jamie and Mickey tend to keep their distance from each other, as much as they can. They still speak, but it’s more polite than it was before. Like they’re strangers, somehow, after knowing each other for five years, since before Mickey’s voice had even cracked.

 

Stevie tries not to be too happy about it.

 

\---  


One day after training, Stevie gets up the courage to ask Jamie if he wants to come over, maybe watch Match of the Day.

 

“Sure, mate,” Jamie says agreeably, and they both go back to Stevie’s house.

 

Jamie says hello to his family, stays for dinner and helps Stevie’s mother clear away the dishes at the end of the meal. She looks at him with such fondness Stevie almost can’t breathe for a moment.

 

That moment passes, and eventually, Paulie goes upstairs to talk on the phone to his girlfriend and his parents go upstairs to give Stevie and Jamie a little bit of space.

 

So they sit on the sofa, a little bit of space between them, and watch the opening credits of Match of the Day, listening to that familiar music.

 

Jamie doesn’t look at him, and Stevie’s watching, too, but not so intently that he somehow manages to not see Jamie’s hand inching closer and closer to his own.

 

Jamie’s fingers find his and slip in between them. They’re holding hands, watching football, and Stevie’s heart could explode at any given moment.

 

“Are you two watching Match of the Day?” Paul hollers from the top of the stairs.

 

“Yes,” Stevie calls back, and suddenly there are footsteps coming down the stairs.

 

Jamie loosens his grip, turning to look at Stevie. “Is this—is this gonna be okay?” he asks tentatively.

 

Stevie tightens his grip in response and casually places a pillow over their joined hands.

 

“It’s fine, J.”

 

Jamie smiles at him, bright and beautiful, dimples curving deep into the flesh of his cheeks.

 

He’s still smiling with Paul comes in and flops onto the other sofa. “How are they doing, then? What did I miss?”

 

“The handshakes,” Jamie says dryly, looking back at the screen. He gives Stevie’s fingers a gentle little squeeze as he settles back against the sofa.

 

The match is pretty dull, and by halftime, Paulie’s bored as hell. “This one’s just a waste of time,” he mutters, getting up and leaving them alone.

 

Jamie laughs a little. “Never thought I’d be grateful that a football match could be this boring,” he says, a little twinkle in his eyes.

 

Stevie grins back at him and moves the pillow, letting their joined hands sit out in the open. There’s something so innocent about them, he thinks as he looks down at Jamie’s fingers threaded through his. For once, he feels his age, and he isn’t the slightest bit upset about it.

 

After the match ends, Jamie turns off the television and turns to face Stevie properly. He rests his other hand on top of Stevie’s, thumb tracing over the soft skin and gentle bumps of veins.

 

“I owe you an apology,” he says very quietly, looking Stevie directly in the eyes. It looks like it hurts him, as if he’s staring at the sun.

 

“For what?” Stevie asks lightly, trying to give him an out.

 

“For what I said, about you not knowing what love is.” Jamie’s eyes fall down to Stevie’s hand, then, nestled between both of his own. “That hurt you, didn’t it?”  


Stevie nods, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat. He can’t say anything, knows that if he tries, he might just break down and start crying, and then Jamie would know once and for all that he’s just a child—

 

But Jamie’s just caressing his hand, thumb sweeping over the skin slowly and steadily. “That was the last thing I wanted. I never wanted you to get hurt, Steve. I just—I figured if this was one of your first experiences, then maybe you just got those feelings mixed up. I—I didn’t want to risk that. I didn’t want to risk having you and then losing you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Stevie.”

 

“It—it _hurt_ —“ Stevie manages to get out.

 

“I know,” Jamie whispers back to him, “I know, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. You deserved better from me.”

 

Stevie breaks. One rebellious tear slips down his cheek, and then another, and suddenly his hand is cold as Jamie’s hands let it go and shift up to caress his cheeks, wiping away the tears.

 

“I just—if it was anybody else, I would have talked to _you_ about it,” Stevie mutters miserably, “but I couldn’t tell anybody!”

 

“My brave boy,” Jamie whispers, “dealing with heartbreak all on your own. My poor boy, not even getting to cry when you were hurting. You wonderful, brave boy.”

 

“Just wanted you. Just wanted you _there_ —“

 

Jamie’s arms are wrapping around his shoulders and bringing him closer, letting him hide his face against Jamie’s neck and cry as Jamie holds him, stroking his hair because it’s all he can do.

 

“I’m sorry, Stevie,” he keeps saying, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

 

Stevie manages to calm down eventually, and he pulls back. Jamie lets him, looking a little crestfallen.

 

Stevie reaches for his hands, holding both of them in both of his own. “I—I saw you and Mickey in the locker room once. You were kissing him. You told him—you said he was _so fuckin’ gorgeous_. It felt like I’d been _shot_ , J. Because that’s how I felt about you, and you were both topless, kissing each other in the locker room—“

 

“You weren’t supposed to see that.” Jamie’s voice is tight, pained as he looks at him.

 

“And then I thought maybe you just said that to me because that’s how _you_ felt,” Stevie continues, “like maybe you felt lust for me and that confused you because you loved Mickey. And I tried not to care, I tried to stop caring, but it’s so _hard_ , J—“

 

Jamie blinks and wipes away a tear on his own cheek. “I know,” he agrees softly, “I hate that I hurt you. God, Steve, that was the absolute last thing I wanted was for you to get hurt—“

 

Stevie leans forward and wraps his arms around Jamie, hugging him tight and not letting go.

 

Jamie hugs him back just as hard and they sit there for a long while, until Jamie finally pulls back and sniffs.

 

“I’ve got to get home, probably,” he says remorsefully, “and you need to get to bed.”

 

“It’s too late for you to be driving home,” Stevie protests, a weak translation of _please don’t go_. “You can stay the night if you want?”

 

Jamie looks at him again, really looks at him, eyes tender, and Stevie wonders how he could have missed that look before, how he could have been so blind as to not be able to see what was right in front of him—

 

Stevie thinks at first that he’s going to make an excuse, try to let him down easy.

 

Instead, he smiles a little. “Do you have a spare blanket?” he asks, “I can sleep on the floor in your room. I’d scare the crap out of your family if they found me sleeping on the sofa in the morning.”

 

Stevie beams, and takes Jamie’s hand to lead him upstairs.

 

Jamie sleeps on the floor, on a thin mattress pad they found in the linen closet and covered with a spare bed sheet. He uses Stevie’s extra pillow and sleeps under an extra blanket.

 

“We could both fit in my bed,” Stevie offers hopefully.

 

“I don’t want your family seeing us in the morning and freaking out, sweetheart,” Jamie says firmly, “I’ll stay down here for tonight, okay? And then we’ll see what happens in the future. But I’m going to treat you right this time, and that means doing this properly.”

 

Stevie pouts, and he lies on his side in bed, looking down at Jamie. “I used to wank to the thought of you,” he confesses, “in here, every night, I’d lay here and close my eyes and think about you. Even had a few wet dreams, that was pretty embarrassing.”

 

“Your dreams, were they all just sexual?” Jamie asks, no judgment in his voice.

 

Stevie shakes his head. “No,” he whispers, “they weren’t.”

 

Jamie looks at him, waiting, but he doesn’t get any more details.

 

Instead, Stevie lets his arm hang over the side of the bed, and Jamie shifts to lock their fingers together.

 

\---  


Stevie feels like he’s fifteen again, the way he loves holding Jamie’s hand whenever he can. On the coach, whenever they’re sitting together watching a film or some program on telly. He holds his hand when they’re on airplanes, and only partly because Stevie’s not a huge fan of flying and Jamie holding his hand gives him an anchor to focus on. Even during training, he takes to helping Jamie up when he gets knocked over and he holds on maybe a few seconds too long before he lets go.

 

He’s a bit more shameless in other ways, too. He lets himself look at Jamie more, lets himself really take in every part of his body. Sometimes, Jamie’s naked in the dressing room and Stevie shoots him a look that he hopes communicates exactly how stupidly attractive he finds him. Sometimes Jamie blushes, just from the way Stevie looks at him, and that feeling is right up there with some of the trophies he’s won.

 

They touch a little bit more, too, touches that stroke instead of pat, lingering for a few seconds, but they were already pretty touchy before, so it’s not that big a difference and nobody remarks on it.

 

\---

 

They talk things through the next time they’re laying in bed together.

 

“This is too important to mess up,” Jamie says bluntly, and his thumb is doing that thing again, where it caresses the skin on the back of Stevie’s hand and Stevie temporarily forgets how to be a human.

 

He nods.

 

“So I want to start out being friends again,” Jamie continues, “and I want us to both be ready before we move on to anything more than that, okay?”

 

“Does that mean sleeping in separate beds?” Stevie blurts out, “or that we can’t hold hands anymore?”

 

Jamie looks down at their hands and flushes. “Maybe—maybe we can start somewhere between friends and dating?” he offers instead, “because I don’t want to give up those things. Does that sound okay to you?”

 

It’s basically continuing on with the status quo, so Stevie can’t find any reason to object, except that it means he’ll probably have to wait longer to get to the happily ever after he’ll never admit he dreams about some nights.

 

“Better than okay,” he says with a smile. He wraps an arm around Jamie’s shoulders and Jamie sinks into it, shifting to lay his head against Stevie’s chest, and this feeling alone is so good that he figures he can wait a little longer for the rest of it.

 

\---

 

They go out on the weekends, on the days they don’t have matches. Jamie takes him to the cinema. They go out to dinner at restaurants that are fancy but comfortable.

 

They go to museums, too, and just take long walks in the city, each with their hands in their pockets.

 

Stevie’s favorite is the cinema, because they get to hold hands in public and Jamie can even be convinced to kiss him if the mood is right. When they go to restaurants, Stevie plays footsie with him under the table and savors the moment that Jamie’s pale skin starts to get slightly pink with embarrassment—or arousal.

 

\---  
They’re watching telly on the sofa in Jamie’s house. His family still live there, but his parents are asleep and his brothers are on strict homework duty for at least another little while.

 

So Jamie gets to lean against Stevie’s chest and listen to the steady thump-thump of his heart as they watch the sitcom and laugh.

 

It’s during one of the advertising breaks, during an ad for exceptional deluxe, feels-just-like-skin condoms, that Jamie looks at Stevie, leans up, and kisses him.

 

Stevie’s surprised at how fast he catches on, because he’s kissing Jamie back almost instantly. Then again, they’ve been inching closer and closer to this moment for weeks now, and he’s just happy it’s finally come.

 

The kiss is strangely restrained. Their hands aren’t frantically trying to gather every inch of each other’s skin just to know it, they aren’t trying to merge their two bodies into one just from the force of their mouths colliding.

 

It’s just their lips, moving against each other in a way that certainly can’t be described as chaste, but can’t quite be described as the opposite of chaste, either.

 

They pull apart when the ads end and the show picks up where it had left off before. Jamie leans right back against him in the same spot, and Stevie kisses his temple and lays his hand on Jamie’s stomach, just resting there.

 

From then on, they keep kissing during the ad breaks. It’s one of the few times Stevie’s been grateful for corporate capitalism. There are ads every five minutes, and the breaks last just long enough for Jamie’s lips to become a little swollen and beautifully shiny.

 

Stevie wonders what it would be like to be with Jamie like this forever, in their own home where they don’t have to move apart when they hear footsteps approaching, where they don’t have to banter when they just want to flirt, where they don’t have to settle for fleeting touches when they want to savor each other’s skin.

 

He’s looking forward to finding out.

 

\---   


 

_One year later—_

 

They’re lying in bed, both awake but not quite ready to start the day just yet. They’re at Stevie’s house, his family all gone on holiday, but the two of them still here because preseason’s starting soon in just a few days.

 

“Hey Steve?” Jamie’s voice is a little raspy, because it’s first thing in the morning one of the rare days where they don’t have to get up for a few hours yet.

 

Stevie hums in response, enjoying the warmth of the morning sunshine on his face.

 

“I think I’m in love with you.”

 

“That’s good to know, because I think I’m in love with you too, Jamie. Took you long enough to catch up, though—“

 

Jamie laughs, and some small, scarred-over wound in Stevie’s heart melts away as he kisses him.

 

“You’re making breakfast, J.”

 

“Are you serious? But I just told you I loved you! Don’t I get some breakfast out of it?” Jamie asks in mock outrage.

 

Stevie laughs and pecks him on the mouth.

 

“Cute, but no.”

 

\---

 

_One year after that—_

 

“How’d you feel about us moving out?” Jamie asks him one day, fingers tracing delicate patterns across Stevie’s left pectoral muscle. “Getting our own place?”

 

Stevie sits up. “Are you serious?”

 

Jamie nods, smiling as if he’s not quite sure what Stevie’s going to think just yet. “So, what do you say? Will you move in with me?”

 

Stevie throws himself at him, arms wrapped tightly around Jamie’s shoulders and squeezing. “Yes, yes, yes,” he whispers in between kisses he can’t quite refrain from, pressed to the thin skin of Jamie’s neck.

 

Jamie hugs him back, arms warm and secure around his back, and once Stevie finally says yes, he hears a little sigh of relief escape.

 

“Thank god, that felt like ten years, waiting for you to actually say something,” he mutters.

 

They look at flats for a long while, examining how close they are to the training ground, how close they are to each of their families, how close they are to parks and museums and gyms and pools, with a list that’s far too long and just about idealistic enough for young men of their age.

 

They settle on a cozy little two-bedroom with one bathroom that they’ll have to share. The kitchen is pretty small, but it has a stove and a fridge and an oven and enough counter space for a blender, a toaster, and a microwave. They don’t need much more than that, seeing as how their culinary repertoire is basically limited to different varieties of eggs, smoothies, and reheating food someone else has made.

 

Their families help them move in, setting up each of their bedrooms and hauling in a sofa and a little table with a few chairs.

 

“This won’t be forever,” Jamie says softly, looking around and being intensely reminded of exactly how small the space actually is, “just a few years in here, I think, Steve, and then they’ll put us on better contracts, higher wages, and we can get something a bit bigger, maybe a little house with a garden—“

 

Stevie turns and looks at him, starry-eyed and utterly content. “This is perfect, J. It’s our home, and I love it.”

 

Jamie kisses him, then.

 

Being at home together all the time is incredible. There’s a wonderful sense of freedom that comes from not having to hide what they feel for each other, even if it’s just within these four walls.

 

It’s such a small thing, and yet it feels monumental, for Stevie to be able to take a shower while Jamie brushes his teeth and puts the kettle on to boil.

 


End file.
